Bat-Wreath! Batman Logo Superhero Christmas Wreath

Like most fun ideas, this one came about completely by accident. My wife and I were shopping for wreath-making supplies at a local craft store, and my daughter was on the phone making suggestions. I remarked that some of the blue ornaments reminded me of the color of Batman's costume (circa 1966), and my daughter said something about a Batman-themed wreath. Then I thought - why make something round when we could make the complete Batman logo?

And thus began another fun dad/daughter project, with me making the basic frame, and her supplying all the rest of the artistic skills. It seemed like a good subject for my first instructable, so read on and learn how you can make your very own Bat-wreath for the next holiday season.

You have a lot of flexibility how you decide to build your wreath. I decided that ours would use an existing metal wreath frame as a foundation. You'll need some wire, a way to cut it, and a way to help bend it.

To build the frame, you will need:

• A circular wire wreath frame, available from most craft stores. Ours was 16" in diameter.
• 12 gauge bendable hanger wire (available at most big box home improvement stores)
• Green craft wire
• Snips for cutting the craft wire
• A pair of heavier snips for cutting the 12 gauge wire (I used the ones on my needle-nose pliers)
• A larger pair of pliers to help bend the wire at sharp angles (I just used my hands for larger curves)
• Optional: Some 3 or 4 ft. lengths of 1/8" steel rods to give your frame more strength (again, visit your home improvement store)
• Optional: Green spray paint to coat the frame before you decorate it
• Optional: A dremel or hacksaw to trim the 1/8" pieces of metal if you use them

To decorate the frame, anything goes! The most common types of materials used for wreaths are:

• Evergreen branches/clippings
• Pieces of holly
• Ornaments
• Pine cones (painted or natural)
• Ribbon

Of course, you can lights, branches, or anything else to make it your own. You'll also want some scissors or pruning sheers (not pictured) in your utility belt to trim your evergreen clippings.

"Atomic Batteries to power... Turbines to speed... Roger- Ready to Wreath-out!"

Do you know how many different Batman-style logos there are? The Caped Crusader's emblem has had many versions over the years, but I decided that the classic Adam West costume design from the 60's TV show was probably the most recognizable. I printed out an image from the web, put my store-bought metal wreath on the floor, and started bending the wire into the approximate shape.

The first thing I did were the "ears" on top, since that was a single piece. I realized almost immediately that this was going to have to be bigger than I thought. Why? Remember that this frame is going to be covered by greens. If you make it too small, the clippings will cover up the finer curves and details.

I put my simple store-bought wreath frame on the floor and started to form the rest of the shape. The wings are formed from one single piece of wire. It's OK if you do the wings separately but consider every time you cut the wire it's another point you're going to have to strengthen later on. The wings are symmetrical, and I tried to get both sides as to close to identical as possible, but in the end the greens will cover any small imperfections so don't sweat this part too much.

I temporarily twisted some small pieces of green wire around the ends of my ears and wings to hold them onto the wreath frame before going to the next step. The final wingspan of the frame turned about to about 58" wide and 30" tall.

"It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do, that defines me."

An outline of the logo is fine, but to make a wreath you need lots of places to attach the greens and decorations. Plus, the empty metal frame isn't strong enough to hold its shape. You need to add lots of additional pieces to fix these issues.

Taking my inspiration from the wreath frame itself, I snipped off 20 pieces or so of the 12 gauge wire and used them to connect various edges of my frame together. And - this is important - wherever two or more pieces of metal crossed, I twisted some craft wire around them and then used my pliers to tighten down the wire even more. You don't want to tighten the wire so much that it breaks, but the 12 gauge pieces should not slide past each other.

I also decided to take some 1/8" steel rods I bought at my local home store to make my frame even stronger. There's one that goes right across the top, and 2 that form an "X" across the wings. You'll see in one of the progress pics later on that I also added a vertical rod on each wing, where I also added a little bend to make hanging the wreath easer.

There's no "right" number of metal strips; just make sure you have enough to make the frame stiff and provide a good foundation for decorating.

"Where does he get those wonderful toys?"

If you have access to a welder and you know what you are doing, this would be the time to do it. But I do not. Luckily, you can use the best invention since the batarang: JB Weld! This is a special type of epoxy glue that can be used to bond metal together. There are a bunch of different varieties - I bought the "classic" which comes in 2 small tubes and has a work time of a few hours and a cure time of about 24 hours. They also have a "fast-set" version which starts to cure in under 20 minutes.

JB Weld mixes in a 1:1 ratio and comes in 2 tubes. Squeeze out a little from each tube and mix them together. Then, with a small brush or stick, thoroughly cover each joint you wired together in the previous steps. The epoxy should cover the joint and the wire, which will form a strong connection.

After the epoxy hardens, you can trim off the excess wire with a pair of snippers.

By now you've created a snazzy, shiny frame. If you've decided to add any extra steel rods for support (or maybe you just made some pieces a little too long) now is the time to trim them off. You can cut away the extra metal using a hacksaw or a Dremel tool with a cutting blade. Note from the picture in this example how I trimmed mine. It's OK it the metal extends a little past the wings - keep in mind the greens you will add will cover up the frame.

Now is also the time to paint the frame if you wish. I don't think it's strictly necessary.. but every wreath frame I've ever seen was painted green so this felt like it was keeping with convention. Of course, the idea is that if you paint the frame green, any part of it that isn't covered will be less noticeable.

Gather all of your greens and decorating materials together near your metal frame. At this point, it's "wreath-making 101". You cut small pieces of whatever branches you've decided to use, and starting tucking them into the frame and weaving them together. You'll want to try and tuck in your outside branches in such a way that they basically follow the shape of the frame, but this won't always work out perfectly. You can uses scissors or pruning sheers to trim around the edges.

As you weave the pieces in, out, and across the frame, feel free to make liberal use of more green craft wire to make sure the clippings all stay in place. My daughter used almost two rolls of the stuff - but it's cheap and the final result felt very sturdy. I've included a picture from the back as well to help show how she layered the cuttings.

She accented the wreath with blue ornaments and yellow ribbon - again reminiscent of the classic Adam West outfit.

We decided to hang ours outside on the deck. It turned out a little too big for the front door.

Wherever you decide to display your wreath, make sure to attach it securely. I decided to use zip-ties around the tips of each wing. I could have hung it from the middle, but this would have put extra strain on the metal wings so I decided to support each one individually.

This project was a lot of fun and opened our eyes to the possibility of many other comic book and science fiction-themed wreath ideas. We'll see you here... Same wreath-time, same wreath channel!